| Description |
1 online resource (272 pages) : illustrations |
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text rdacontent |
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computer rdamedia |
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online resource rdacarrier |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Contents |
I. History -- Ancient Optics : Magnification Without Lenses -- The Solar Weapon of Archimedes -- Claudius Ptolemy's Law of Refraction -- Antonio de Ulloa's Mystery -- The Miracle of St. Gascoigne -- Rays of the Sun -- Roy G. Biv -- George Christoph Lichtenberg -- Hopkinson's Silk Handkerchief -- First Light : Thomas Melville and the Beginnings of Spectroscopy -- Mediocrity and Illumination -- Even If You Can't Draw a Straight Line -- A Sea Change -- Thomas Pearsall and the Ultraviolet -- If at First You Don't Succeed -- More than a Burner -- Apply Light Pressure -- Sound Movies, the World's Fair, and Stellar Spectroscopy -- Deja vu -- The Magic Lantern of Omar Khayyam -- II. Weird Science -- The Yellow Sun Paradox -- Once in a Blue Moon -- Chromatic Dispersions -- The Eye in the Spiral -- Retroreflectors -- Yes, I Was Right! It Is Obvious! -- Edible Lasers -- Pyrotechnic Lasers -- Defunct Lasers -- The Phantom Laser -- The Case of the Oily Mirrors; A Locked Room Mystery -- Pinhole Glasses -- Undulations -- III. Pop Culture -- This is Your Cat on Lasers -- Dord -- Zap! -- Mystic Cameras -- Playing With Light -- I Must Find That Tractor Beam -- The Rise and Fall and Rise of the Starbow -- Diamonds in the Dark -- A Popular History of the Laser -- Pop Culture Errors in Optics -- Pop Spectrum -- The Telephote -- Afterword. |
| Note |
Description based on print version record. |
| Subject |
Optics.
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Optics -- History.
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Optics -- Biography.
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Optics -- Social aspects -- History.
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| Genre/Form |
Electronic books.
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| Other Form: |
Print version: Wilk, Stephen R. How the ray gun got its zap : odd excursions into optics. Oxford : Oxford University Press, [2013] vi, 263 pages 9780199948017 (DLC) 2013009902 |
| ISBN |
9780199948017 (acid-free paper) |
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9780199948024 (electronic bk.) |
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